College Campus Locked Down Over Racism – Maybe

You may have heard that last Monday, Colgate University, in lovely New York State, went into lockdown over an active shooter incident.

Oh, you didn’t hear? Maybe that’s because was there was no active shooter on the campus of Colgate University. As defined by the federal government, an active shooter is an individual actively engaged in killing or attempting to kill people in a confined and populated area.

Sure, there was a call placed to campus security regarding a sighting. “Shortly after 8 p.m. Monday, two students reported seeing a shirtless black man running in the rain carrying his shirt and phone in one hand, and what appeared to be a weapon in his other hand. He was running into a campus building,” wrote Syracuse.com.

So it is night time – it’s pouring down rain, and a man is running. Whoever called in the report must have been Clint Barton – Hawkeye from Marvel’s Avengers.

Evidently the report was almost entirely accurate, so bully for the witnesses. There was but one thing the witnesses described incorrectly. The shirtless black man was armed with a GLUE gun and was rushing into the building to complete an art project that was due.

For this, the entire Colgate campus went into a four hour lockdown, as campus security, local police and a SWAT team went building to building. There was even report of a tank being present – although it more likely an MRAP (Mine-Resistant Ambush Protected) vehicle that more and more police departments are deploying for these types of situations.

Since the incident, the president of Colgate, Brian Casey, has placed Bill Ferguson, head of campus security, on administrative leave pending investigation, for it was Ferguson who apparently called the student an “active shooter.”

However, this time it really isn’t about a gun. It’s about a black man with a gun.

The president of Colgate is trying to paint the security director, Bill Ferguson, as a racist – as if the only reason he called it at active shooter incident, was because the kid holding the glue gun was a shirtless black man.

Now I don’t Ferguson from Adam. He may be a flaming racist. But I’ll bet, the University President doesn’t know him either. Actually, quite the opposite. Seems to me they would have probably discovered that already – that is if he were/is a racist.

Yet what is this security director, or any campus security director to do these days. They are damned if they do, and damned if they don’t. With the hypersensitivity towards scary guns by many snowflake students, faculty and administrators on college campuses today, security is more likely to overreact than under.

Did Ferguson overreact? Absolutely. Did/does he not understand the difference between merely being armed and an active shooter? Possibly. But regardless, Ferguson is being made the scapegoat.

The following day, President Casey released a scathing email, not about guns for a change, but as it usually comes back to these days, racism. Of course it does.

“It is important that we understand the role that implicit racial bias had in the initial reporting of and responses to the events of last night. I want to make sure we speak with those who made and received the initial report to understand the role this played. More egregiously, perhaps, was the effect profiling had on the response of safety officers and other university offices to these events,” Casey wrote.

Oh great. Just throw everyone under the bus, why don’t you.

Here we go again. It is astonishing just how many liberals (and you know this president is) have this six sense, to peer into another’s soul to see “implicit racial bias.” As we know, or at least as is implied by Casey, that if this were a shirtless white man running into a campus building holding what was described as a gun, it never would have been called in. Or if it were, Ferguson would have just said, “Oh, it’s a white guy? That’s okay then. Go back to sleep.”

Of course, all this could have been avoided if the shirtless black student would have obtained a concealed-carry glue-gun permit – although in New York, those are probably difficult to obtain. But at least that way he wouldn’t be seen brandishing it about.

The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of the author and are not not necessarily either shared or endorsed by iPatriot.com.

The Common Constitutionalist

Brent Smith, aka The Common Constitutionalist, is a constitutional conservative who advocates for first principles – the founders' original intent and enemy of progressives. He is former Navy and a martial arts expert. Smith considers himself just an average Joe with no formal journalism background – but rather than simply complain about the state of our nation, he took to the Internet to battle the left.

Join the conversation!

We have no tolerance for comments containing violence, racism, vulgarity, profanity, all caps, or discourteous behavior. Thank you for partnering with us to maintain a courteous and useful public environment where we can engage in reasonable discourse.